


Of Jet Fuel, Self-Doubt, and Fatherhood

by FourAlignments



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Peter Maximoff's Mother, But Erik knows that Peter or Pietro is his son, Critique of 1950s Culture, Erik Has Feelings, Erik actually being Jewish, Gen, Good Parent Erik Lehnsherr, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, McCarthyism, Parent Erik Lehnsherr, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Peter doesn't know that Erik is his father, Pietro Maximoff Goes by Peter, Protective Erik Lehnsherr, Red Scare, References to Depression, Rosh HaShana | Jewish New Year, dadneto, references to alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourAlignments/pseuds/FourAlignments
Summary: When Raven is captured, Peter takes it upon himself to get her back. But what he wasn't expecting was a certain Metalbender to turn his whole world upside down.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr & Pietro Maximoff
Comments: 6
Kudos: 90





	Of Jet Fuel, Self-Doubt, and Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quill18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quill18/gifts).



> This is me being restrained, this is only four pages and top of a fifth page. I wrote this in three days. I started this on Thursday of this week.

It was all his fault. He should have been faster. It was always like him despite his faster than light speed to always be a few hours, minutes, seconds too late. Just like the failure that he was and always will be. It started with his father leaving for whatever reason, his mother never told him why. But he was a man to be feared and never found. To be without a father was a failure on his mother part, his family, and the children to fail to live up to that nuclear family ideal: a father breadwinner, a stay at home mom, and two children and a white picket fence. It was a reality that never was; that existed only on _Leave It Beaver, Father Knows Best_ , and _Back To The Future._

Everything was painted with a stepford smile; there were no problems in America’s nuclear families, wives were happy cooking and cleaning and raising children on her own. Husbands didn’t cheat on their wives and say ‘Honey! I’m home’ and the children and wife would be sitting at the dinner table with a nice warm dinner; there wouldn’t be any divorce. Children followed the rules and didn’t listen to this rock and roll nonsense. Life was simple, it was a utopia; people are perfect and everything was black and white.

But that was far from reality.

Peter remembered with great deal of clarity the salacious rumors that were spread about his mother. Why he wasn’t given up; he was a problem child unable to focus in school, had too much energy; he was lazy, reckless, lacked discipline, disrespectful to authority; he was everything wrong with society. His mother must have giving him speed. That it was impossible to raise a child, let alone three of them on her own. She was labeled ‘unnatural,’ ‘perverted, ‘neurotic’ and ‘schizophrenic’; seeking to castrate men in her pursuit of a good paying job; whispers of alleged lesbianism. No respectable housewife wanted to talk or touch her with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole! His mother worked hard to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. But it was incredibly lonely, he would join her in bed as she cried herself to sleep many a night. He was so desperate to give her any comfort. She dulled her pain with alcohol. 

It was a problem not to be named.

Then things just got worse when his hair started to turn from copper auburn red to sterling silver. It was divine proof of his mother’s promiscuity and immorality and being thoroughly un-American. He was the result a Soviet Nuclear experiment; what else could explain it? The hair, the questioning of authority, the energy, the lack of a patriarchal figure in his life. It all made perfect sense! He was a communist plot to destroy America! All because he was a round peg that wouldn’t fit in a square hole.

His absentee dad didn’t escape them as well. He was an ill-gotten man, who neglected his duty to marry for selfish, narcissistic reasons and was unpatriotic. The nuclear family was the front line against the Soviet Union threat to watch over and protect the next generation of loyal citizens; mothers and fathers had to be vignette against treachery and deviants. It was simple fact that deviants and subsequent unethical behavior was how Soviet agents blackmailed citizens; how acts of sabotage, espionage, infiltration, happened. If these deviants were not a communist already or even sympathizers, who planted subversive ideas in the American public minds rather that be in word, film, or books.

There are places where the road keeps going.

No matter what happened things eventually got better. It wasn’t long before his mother was seen as trailblazer for having a job and making a living for herself and their family. But it didn’t some from questioning if he had a father figure in his life that he wouldn’t be acting up or he would have better grades, the whole nine yards.

But he was still a failure, a freak, an outcast, the unwanted; even though he was part of the X-Men and no matter how many mission successes they went on and mutants freed. He was a plain and simple failure, who spent most of his adult life living in his mother’s basement when Jean or Jubilee were talking about the universities; it just wasn’t possible with his mom saving money, the bills that had to be paid, medical emergency with Lorna’s blossoming powers that took a toll on her; they were always one bill away from financial ruin. When it became abundantly clear that with his metabolism there wasn’t enough food in the fridge or in the pantry that it was either him or his family that could eat for the week. He didn’t start stealing for the adrenaline rush or sale goods on the black market; he was starving.

He never knew how little his family had until he came to Xavier’s.

It became really awkward talking with Scott and the many younger mutants at the school about parents and saying he didn’t have a father. Before the subject was quickly dropped for the latest album of Bon Jovi or Blondie. No one really knew him.

He was a failure, a failure that couldn’t stop Raven from getting captured by the Friends of Humanity; that despite their Orwellian name, they were anything but. Top this whole shitty situation they formed an alliance with William Stryker’s Purifiers, a paramilitary Christian terrorist group. All they needed was three more members to complete their Evil League of Evil. He really had to hand to them with their names that came right out of comic books. What next? Mother’s Against Mutant Babies? The immoral mutority? The Human Defense League?

If only he had been faster. For the fastest guy in the world he always had a terrible habit of showing up late, when he was needed there the most. Peter flicked the switches on the X-Jet and japed at the panels to see if any

“Of course, Hank can’t put a simple button that just says ‘on’ to his super-high-tech-fancy-ass-warbird.” Peter rolled his eyes, “But it just like me to not pay attention to boring long-Droopy-can-go-faster-than-him presentation.” He got twelve snacks over the course of that lecture. Peter swooshed over the other side of the cockpit flicking all the switches until finally…

The X-Jet roared to life with its supersonic engines and the lights of cockpits flashed on with red and reading of fuel intake, wind speed, altitude, vertical speed, primary flight display, navigation display, flight management system, speed control, lip-skid indicator, adjustable altimeter, heading indicator, Turn indicator, artificial horizon, and compass. “Yes!” Peter shouted toward the sky and curling his fist in triumph toward his body. 

He didn’t know what half those instruments were even telling him. He really should have paid attention in that lecture. “What are you doing?” Peter jumped back when hearing the sound of Erik’s voice behind him and turned to face the metalbender, who was pulling a Miami Vice look of gray suit with a black turtle neck with the slightest hint of stubble, though not clean shaven.

“I'm trying to get this thing off the ground, a little help?" Peter answered, fury in his voice. Giving a glance back at Erik; the man had a surprising ability to show when he was at least expected, and it scared the jeepers out of him. Erik would always look at him with this expression of regret, sadness, the gleam of hope and the stern stare of a vigilant protector. Just being in the doorway or across a grass lawn, and giving a slight curve of a smile, before steeling his expression; surveyed the area like a parent guarding their child playing in the park.

Thing that surprised him the most was when Erik, who didn’t talk to him all that often or if at all; said that he had _Bobeshi’s_ eyes and he thought he would never see them again and had her compassion and selflessness. He had no idea what Erik was talking about? What was a _Bobeshi_?

Erik was almost seemed fearful and awkward of him; which for one the most powerful mutants on the planet, the Master of Magnetism. Like if he was too close to him than he would be lost or taken.

"No." Was the only word Erik responded with.

“What?" Peter turned around and shot a look of complete betrayal. "Why not!? Isn’t revenge your favorite thing?" This was the man who almost destroyed the world connecting to the Earth’s electromagnetic field because some humans killed his family. From his conversations with the Professor, Erik hunted Nazis back in the 60s. Which he was doing the world a service. The dude was rage and anger personified; he did not want to cross that man when he was angry or when his family threatened. He became the male version of Ellan Ripley protecting Newt or the T-8000 with John Connor. 

"Going out there alone will only get you hurt." Erik reasoned. "Your safety is my responsibility." Taking a step forward.

"It's not." Peter snapped and went back to fiddling with the jet controls. Raven needed him; he wasn’t a failure. He couldn’t fail.

Erik's heart constricted painfully with a protective feeling. "Peter, stop."

"Why aren't you helping me?" Peter glanced back. He cursed under her breath when all the switches flipped and clicked themselves off. The tiny lights on the cockpit displayed shut off. The deafening roar of the afterburners tearing the air in two in the turbine engine turning it into a bright artic blue flame hummed to a standstill, the turbine swirled for a little while longer. "You know her better than me. You're her friend!" Shouting at the metalbender.

"Being your father is more important to me than being her friend." Peter’s dark pearl pupils shrunk to a sharp point and his breath caught in this throat. He gave an audible gulp trying to get down the phlegm building up. He would not cry and scrapped the corners of his eyes and snuffed back a heaping of watery mucus. This just wasn’t possible. Erik couldn’t be his father. He had to be lying. His father was a nobody, a selfish man who didn’t care about raising his children. Not an all-powerful mutant. He just lost his family. Why would he want him? A failure.

Peter stumbled over into Erik’s arms, into a deep warm hug. Streams of wet tears flowed down his face and connected with runoff of clear mucus and pooled into Erik’s black turtleneck as he heaved all the pain, alienation, and misery that he suffered throughout his childhood; he was different. Erik became like a stone pillar holding him up, supporting him. Hugging him. But Peter’s legs gave out and the two sank to the metal flooring, holding one another.

Erik was the first one to speak, “I did not abandon you because I wanted to.” The newly rejuvenated metalbender. He was a father again. He would do anything to protect his only family he had left. A time when he was happier, but he could allow himself to be joyous. When he saw Shaw walking the streets. Not a glance was given to the former Nazi scientist. He could not let Shaw get away with his crimes not only of the death of his mother but the atrocities against his people; not be brought to justice. “I did it because I had to protect you.” His voice hitched in his throat, “I couldn’t allow him to get his hands on you.” Erik could still remember holding his son in his arms, his bundle of embers dancing like fireflies into the night sky that would be extinguished in a moment if Shaw ever got to him, “He would have killed your soul.” Tightening his grip, he wouldn’t lose another. Tears running away from his eyes. “I owe a long explanation, but it doesn’t mitigate the harm that I have done to you and your mother.” He could have came back after killing Shaw and spent time with his son; but he it was if he was walking on air and that anything was possible in that year and half between the Missile Crisis and assassination. “I hope you can forgive me.” Rubbing circles into the speedster’s shoulders.

“Why?” Peter muttered into the crook of his turtleneck. Erik dejected and small shiver went through him like lightening. He was going to lose him. The worst possible scenario other than Peter’s death by experimentation from human hands. “Why? Why are you telling me now?”

“It’s Rosh Hashanah. I’ve been meditating and soul searching; I’ve deeply wronged you Pietro. For not being there as your father. I realize that I cannot lie to myself and justify my actions any longer. I want to repair our relationship as best I can to try to make up for loss time. I want to be in your life, Pietro, if you let me. I do not want this to happen again.” Erik squeezed Peter hoping to give as much love and affection in this one hug as he could.

“How long have you known th-that I’m your son?” Peter’s tears drawing to a close and now under control, but his eyes puffy and salty.

“I’ve always known. I’ve known all along. I knew you were my son when you broke me out of the Pentagon.” Before adding, “You gave me a second chance, a different path. I thought I was alone.” Erik touched their foreheads together. The older mutant helped his son up, his legs now like sandbags, heavy and unresponsive, to a change in position.

“I—Growing up I thought I was alone. I was always excluded, no mattered what I did or much I tired to fit in…I wasn’t allowed to be normal.” Thinking about the times he hid his sliver hair in a baseball cap or beanie it just didn’t matter; they always knew that he was a freak of nature and nothing would change that. He couldn’t change his appearance; not even with temporary dyes, his hair just grew too fast.

They had loads of baggage to claim and unload, to heal, together. “But, I’m here now and I’m not going to leave.”

“I love you, Dad.”

A phrase Erik never thought he would hear again from his children.

**Author's Note:**

> Bibliography:   
> http://www.faculty.umb.edu/heike.schotten/readings/Coontz,%20American%20Families%20in%20the%201950s.pdf
> 
> https://www.e-ir.info/2011/11/03/the-extraordinary-injustice-of-mccarthy%E2%80%99s-america/
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi7qyXan9mk&ab_channel=RenegadeCut
> 
> https://www.brainchildmag.com/2013/03/single-mom-stigma-alive-and-kicking/
> 
> http://bethel-harrisonburg.org/rabbis-blog/2013/9/16/the-seeds-of-teshuvah-the-mitzvah-of-forgiveness-erev-rosh-hashanah-sermon-by-rabbi-joe-blair
> 
> https://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/guide/48939217.html?s=lb
> 
> https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-ten-days-of-repentance/
> 
> https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/repentance/
> 
> Please do leave a Kudos or comment it really makes my day or night. I do enjoy nice long comments it gives me something to talk to you about in the comment section. If I like your comment enough it will go on my comment hall of fame on my Tumblr page. Do also bookmark and recommended!


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